[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20863-20869]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come 
before the House, and I want to thank the Democratic leadership for 
allowing us, the 30-Something Working Group, to come to the floor to 
talk about issues that are facing not only young Americans but 
Americans in general.
  The 30-Something Working Group, as I have stated before, time after 
time, is a group of 30-something Members on the Democratic side of the 
aisle who meet every week. We come together on the issues that are 
facing Americans and discuss things that, A, are working or, B, things 
that are not working on behalf of the American people, and we try to 
bring that to the attention of our colleagues here in this House.

                              {time}  1800

  I think it is important for us to not only be very aware of what is 
happening now in the action or inaction here in the Congress or here in 
this House. I think it is also important for us to realize that 
Hurricane Katrina survivors and those that are still in recovery are in 
need of a government that is willing to respond not only as it relates 
to saying, well, we passed the $62.2 billion emergency appropriation, 
but to make sure that we never have to be placed in a position that we 
are in now, not this House, but the people affected by the storm, and 
not as it relates to the natural disaster.
  We know that is an act of God and that will happen; but as it relates 
to governance, who dropped the ball or who did not respond in time, who 
did not get a letter because too many people lost their lives because 
the response was not what it should have been.
  Mr. Speaker, it was not the hurricane that killed a number of people, 
people who have children lost at this point, that homes are devastated 
in New Orleans because of the flooding. It was not just the storm that 
made that happen. Governance broke down somewhere. Our reason for 
coming to the floor today is to not only share with our colleagues but 
to make sure that we are abundantly clear with the American people 
about the importance of having an independent commission out of the 
control of this House and out of the control of this Congress to allow 
appointments to take place, bipartisan, and independent.
  Right now we have a partisan select committee that will be meeting 
sometime in the very near future, maybe tomorrow, organizing and trying 
to bring witnesses before them. I am very, very proud, and when I say 
very, very proud, this is the moment we live for to be able to stand up 
on behalf of those who are not here to stand up on behalf of 
themselves.
  We know that the American people have said, 70 percent of the 
American people have said, they want an independent committee like the 
9/11 Commission to look at what happened or what did not happen as it 
relates to the response and preparation for Hurricane Katrina. We are 
looking at the number of 200 billion Federal dollars being spent to 
rebuild and help those Americans get back on their feet.
  It is important for us to have this independent commission to be able 
to make sure that we are not at this point ever again, especially when 
it comes down to the breakdown of government. I think it is important. 
I am not trying to be a pessimist in any way, but I think it is 
important for us to call it what it is. It is a partisan select 
committee created by the House of Representatives, passed outside of 
what we call regular order here in the process, outside of regular 
order, going to certain committees that have oversight

[[Page 20864]]

over the necessary agencies. But to say we are going to get to the 
bottom of what happened is just not the way to go about doing it. Not 
even 50/50, or 10 on one side and 10 on the other side to make sure 
accountability is there so the American people can have some 
confidence.
  No, because the majority wanted to keep control of the process and 
because the President and others that are here in this Congress wanted 
to keep control of the process, we have a partisan select committee 
that has been appointed and given the charge to find out the truth. I 
think that not only Democrats on this side of the aisle but some of my 
good friends on the other side of the aisle should speak out. I know 
that Democrats have, but I challenge some of my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle to speak out and say this is wrong, because we know 
it is wrong. We know it is going to be partisan, and we know we will 
not get the hard questions answered.
  We know that if the administration has anything to do with the 
response, which admittedly the President has said it was not what it 
should have been, that would have been fine if we were talking about a 
check that was not mailed out, a rebate check and it was 3 days late. 
We are talking about loss of life, loss of property. We are talking 
about children as we speak now that are still missing. We are talking 
about people who spent 3 days on their own roof or in their attic or 3 
days on a bridge without water, without proper sanitation and without a 
response from the Federal Government to be able to save not only their 
lives in some cases but also as it relates to saving their property, of 
making sure that we were there to respond.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman, and I 
think this is an opportunity for us to step up and do this in a way 
that the American people will see this as an honest attempt to try to 
figure out what the problems are and what the problem was and what the 
problem is, and if we continue down the road, what the problems will 
be.
  The real issue I think and why over 70 percent of the American people 
want an independent commission, bipartisan, half Democrats half 
Republicans, people who do not sit in this body, people who do not have 
to ask the administration for favors during the appropriations process, 
or through the regulatory process, that is, the problem is we have 
Members who will be on this floor who will need favors from the 
administration, will be cutting deals in here, will be the same people 
who are going to try to figure out what the problems are.
  I want to say on behalf of myself, I hate this. I hate the fact that 
we have to come to the floor and talk about this stuff. We spoke about 
Social Security for months and months. I hate the fact that we have to 
be critical of this administration. I hate the fact that we have to be 
critical of Michael Brown and the whole process, but that is our 
constitutional obligation. When we raise our hands the first week in 
January every other year, we swear an oath to the Constitution.
  The outfit, the gang that is running this place, just cannot seem to 
shoot straight. They did not tell us the truth with the Medicare 
prescription drug number. It was $400 billion the night we voted on it, 
and it turned into $700 billion or $800 billion. There was 
misinformation before the war on terror. The budget numbers that were 
given daily, weekly over the past few years are not accurate, never 
are.
  The spiel about the tax cuts are going to create all these new jobs, 
not true. That is why 70 percent of the American people want an 
independent commission. They think this is the gang that cannot shoot 
straight, and it is.
  And for the President to be giving a speech on Social Security two 
days afterwards when all of America is watching this on their 
television, how far removed is he? How insulated from the average 
American is he? That is the problem: we have a disconnect between this 
government and the American people. I hope that this independent 
commission that we are pushing for, like the 9/11 Commission, will be 
one that will bring some credibility back to the government, one that 
will take an accurate look at what happened here and bring us the 
facts.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan) speaks the truth. There is no question about it. Now we are 
hearing on CNN, and we have to hear it on CNN, unfortunately, that the 
Republican leadership plans to go forward with their partisan committee 
to investigate Hurricane Katrina. Rightfully so, the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi) has refused to appoint Democratic Members, and 
everyone I have spoken to in our Democratic Caucus, if asked to serve 
by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), we will stand our ground 
and insist on there being an independent commission.
  The example we have been using here on this floor is would the 
American public be comfortable if Enron executives examined and 
investigated what went wrong in their corporation and their corporate 
scandals? How about Tyco? You would never accept those kinds of 
internal reviews as being accountable, objective, or independent.
  If Congress is going to truly inspire the confidence again of the 
American people, which is what we so desperately need to do when it 
comes to our emergency preparedness procedures, it is to not engage in 
partisan infighting and backside-covering, because that is what they 
are doing here with insisting on having a partisan internal 
congressional committee instead of an independent, objective 9/11-style 
commission. It is confidence that we need to restore because it is the 
issue of security that Americans most want to feel comfortable that 
their government is taking care of.
  That was supposedly why the President was reelected last year. One of 
the reasons many people cited was because they felt he would keep them 
safer, this administration would be more likely, supposedly, to keep 
them safer. I bet a lot of those people are scratching their heads 
wondering why they cast that vote and where is the action to back up 
the words that the administration campaigned on all of last year.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to 
realize when it is time to lead and when it is time to not only lead 
but stand up on behalf of the folks that elected us here. It is 
important for us to stand up.
  The American people, they do not want us to be partisan, and they do 
not want a partisan select committee selected by the House that is 
partisan. They want an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission. 
They want that. I guarantee you the folks in Alabama and Mississippi 
and definitely the people in Louisiana, and I would even say the folks 
in Florida, want an independent commission.
  Members do not see anyone running around here saying we want a 
partisan commission to look at what happened. I do not see one headline 
that says we want it to be partisan so we do not find out exactly what 
we need to find out, not the who done it and who did it kind of thing, 
but where the ball was dropped so we can save lives, American lives. 
This is not a foreign country somewhere.
  We are saying we need to make sure that we prevent loss of life. 
There are Americans that died in the aftermath of this hurricane. I say 
the aftermath. I cannot help but remember the story where the gentleman 
was caught on television, and a reporter walked up and said what is 
wrong. ``My wife, she is gone. I was holding her hand. I could not hold 
on. She said, `You cannot hold me any longer.''' That was not a natural 
disaster; that was the fact that we did not have in place what we 
needed to have in place to make sure the governance, the government, be 
it local, State or Federal, was responding to these individuals.
  I have papers stacked this high with pictures of people sitting in 
front of their loved ones because they ran out of insulin or oxygen. 
This is a failure, and we will never know, we will not know the truth 
if we allow this Congress, the majority of this Congress to

[[Page 20865]]

deny the American people, not just the Democrats in Congress but the 
American people and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the truth and to 
make sure and ensure that it will not happen again, because we will be 
better by having a nonpartisan commission outside of this Congress to 
evaluate what went wrong, what went right, and what we have to focus 
on.

                              {time}  1815

  We are better now because of the 9/11 Commission. We passed a bill 
here on this floor because of their work. We were able to save American 
lives and protect America in the future.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I want to piggyback on what he is 
saying here because not only do the American people want an independent 
review so that their confidence can be restored. They want their 
representatives in Congress to be statespeople. They want us to step up 
and put partisanship aside. My colleagues are veterans of this process, 
and I have been here 9, almost 10 months now, and the thing that has 
been the most startling to me is how partisan it is here. It does not 
need to be this way. I know. I have spoken to some Members even today, 
some Members who are leaders on the Republican side who I know if we 
came around the table and sat down and hashed out how we could best 
approach the review of what happened with Katrina and the response and 
our lack of preparedness, I know we could work it out. But the 
leadership here does not allow that to happen. It is all about winning. 
It is all about ``our way or the highway.'' And Americans are sick of 
``our way or the highway'' politics. They just want us to get it done 
and do the right thing. And I just do not understand why it has to be 
about winning, it has to be about we are going to protect our 
backsides, we are going to make sure that the truth really does not 
come out. God forbid if we actually admit that we made a mistake. That 
is just irresponsible.
  And to me the most devastating thing, besides the loss of life and 
the children, the little babies that we see being held by people who 
are not their mothers, because their parents are gone and no one knows 
where they are, the thing that is most devastating to me is knowing 
that there are millions of people in this country who do not believe in 
us anymore, who do not believe in this process. Look at the polling 
numbers on Congress and how Americans feel about the job we are doing. 
Our constituents might like us as individuals, and that is only some of 
us; but as a body, as an institution, we have lost their faith. And we 
have lost their faith because all we do is throw up our elbows and duke 
it out and fight to the finish. They want us to do our jobs and do 
right by them, and that means putting aside winning, and making sure 
that we can come together as Americans, like we did after 9/11, like I 
saw Congress do after 9/11 when we were all linking arms and working 
together.
  Maybe Katrina, because it only happened to one region of the country, 
was not a unifying enough event. But if there is ever a time. We just 
had Rita hit Florida. It is bearing down as a category 5 on Texas now. 
I mean, clearly no one is immune from this in this country, and it is 
time that we exercise some leadership. And I think we should ask our 
leadership, especially the leadership running this Congress, to say to 
themselves, it is not all about me. That is what the American people 
want us to do. I just wonder whether they have the courage and the 
nerve to do it. It certainly does not seem that way.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, it does not look like it. And I think David Broder had a great 
quote saying that majority Republicans see themselves first and 
foremost as members of the Bush team. Well, this is not about their 
team winning. This is not about politics, and we know for the last 5 
years it has been all politics all the time here, as I talked about 
Medicare and all the other issues. And now here we go again.
  Here is the thing I think that we need to recognize. When we have 
this colossal of a screwup, somebody is going to get embarrassed. It is 
not going to be pretty. Someone has got to hang for this, and someone 
has got to take responsibility. And that is the thing I think the 
American people want from their government. They want responsible 
Members, but they want accountability. And accountability means someone 
is going to get embarrassed, and it means that someone in FEMA screwed 
up. But do my colleagues know what? It is not about President Bush. It 
is not about that one person who screwed up. It is not about the series 
of people who contributed as the days went on from the screwup. Do the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz) know what this is about? This is about fixing the 
problem, as they said earlier. And if someone needs to get embarrassed, 
they need to recognize that this Chamber, this country, and the way we 
respond to emergency situations, whether they are natural disasters or 
terrorist attacks, that response and our responsibility is bigger than 
the couple of people who are going to get embarrassed.
  There are certain things that are bigger than winning and more 
important than winning, and that means we have got to make sure that we 
do this in the right way. This cannot be a whitewash. We cannot get out 
the Brillo pads and try to make this look clean. We have got to find 
out where the ugliness is, where the lack of communication was.
  Knowing about the simulation last summer in July of 2004 of Hurricane 
Pam, a simulated hurricane that FEMA did a study on that, if it hit New 
Orleans what would happen, and they predicted right down the line every 
single thing that would happen. A category 4 in New Orleans, levees 
would break, a million people would need to get evacuated. And every 
other situation that happened, FEMA's response, the simulated Hurricane 
Pam told us exactly what is going to happen.
  So my point is that someone is going to get embarrassed here and it 
is not going to be pretty. But at the end of the day, the system is 
going to be stronger because we are going to know what the mistakes 
were and we are going to know how to fix them. But if they are not 
willing to find out what the problem is, then they are not going to be 
able to fix it. And our responsibility is to fix it. So although this 
may be painful for the majority party and it may be painful for the 
Bush administration, this system that we have is bigger than all of 
them put together, and that is what we are here to do is preserve this 
system.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) 
heard me once before speak of the fact that it is not personal, it is 
just business. And that is the reason why we are here. We are here to 
conduct business.
  I have very good friends on the other side of the aisle. I am talking 
about good friends that I had long-lasting relationships with prior to 
becoming a Member of Congress. As it relates to this select committee, 
those individuals that were fortunate enough to be appointed by the 
House leadership, many of them are good friends of mine. I mean, these 
are individuals that I talk to, and we talk about football and we talk 
about things that just regular everyday associates would talk about.
  But it is not about them. It is about the fact that there has been a 
select committee elected on partisan lines, partisan lines, with a 
partisan vote that will meet tomorrow and, as we read through the 
media, will meet next week, a partisan committee to carry out a 
bipartisan job. A bipartisan job. How can they carry out a bipartisan 
job when from the beginning it already smacks of political overtones? 
It is almost like, as the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz) said, and I think she said it right, we are going to do our 
in-house investigation. What usually happens when people do an in-house 
investigation is someone screams for an independent investigation. For 
those men and women that are in business out there

[[Page 20866]]

in America, they always have to get, 9 times out of 10, an outside 
audit for their company versus an inside audit. Independent it is 
called. And I think it is important for an independent commission, when 
we get one, because we are willing to fight. The Democrat side of the 
aisle is saying we are willing to fight on behalf of what the American 
people want.
  Now, I did not hear one speech during the creation or the vote last 
Thursday on this partisan commission or select committee of saying that 
the people want a partisan select committee, and I am here to say that 
it is important that we have one. Not one speech. But that is what we 
have now. Because there are some individuals here in the Beltway that 
want vindication and validation, which, I guess, vindication, not 
rightfully so, but just to say, well, I had nothing to do with it and 
to beat up on Michael Brown of all people. And I think there is pretty 
much consensus on the fact that he did not possess the experience and 
the leadership qualities to be able to carry out the mission of being 
Director of FEMA. We know that. I mean, that is almost like the 
President's showing up 3 or 4 days later, or what have you, after he 
was supposed to be there, and saying there are a lot of homes, a lot of 
flooding going on. And people say, oh, really? We saw that on TV like 4 
days ago. We are getting blankets and all these things in now when they 
should have had them 3 days ago. The world watched people on top of 
their roofs, and thank God for the Coast Guard who were there trying to 
pluck people off when we had mountains of Federal resources sitting 
somewhere at some staged area while people are there starving.
  I went to Mississippi, Hancock County. Folks said they had sanctioned 
looting. The mayor standing out in front saying go in and get what they 
need, the essentials to survive. In America. This is not behind a war 
zone. This is not in a fort area. This is America where they can go in 
and help people, but failed to do so.
  Once again I want to make sure that I am crystal on this and we are 
crystal. We are not only talking about what did not happen as it 
relates to the Federal response. We are talking about the State 
response. We are talking about the local parish response. We are 
talking about whoever was in charge of carrying out the plan, making 
sure it does not happen again. This is not isolated to the Gulf States. 
This is America, because we all learned what happened on 9/11 happened 
here in Washington, DC, happened in Pennsylvania with the plane going 
down, happened in New York City. But guess what? Having that 
independent commission helped prevent terrorism throughout the country. 
LAX is a more secure airport because of the 9/11 Commission. More 
secure. And I think it is important that we realize that this battle is 
not on behalf of what we want on the Democratic side. The battle is 
worth fighting on behalf of the American people. And I will tell the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) I know for a fact that there are some Republicans that 
sit on that side of the aisle that know 110 percent that we are right. 
And I will say this, just like I have said it before, when it came down 
to some of the votes that took place and when I called for some of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to go see the wizard, get 
some courage, and stand up publicly to this rhetoric of a partisan 
select committee to investigate yourself.
  If I messed up and I was to come to the floor and say I have decided 
that I am going to investigate myself, I mean it sounds a little funny 
because it is.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. It would be funny if it were not so sad.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. If it was not so sad. I will investigate myself, 
and we will be back in a number of months and give our findings. That 
would be fine if we did not live in a democracy. But we do live in a 
democracy, and I think it is important that we call it for what it is. 
It is a partisan select committee based on trying to find out what 
happened or what did not happen in Katrina, and it is not bipartisan.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to 
yield, let us put a little meat on this bone. Let us put a little meat 
on this bone. Why do they not want us to look at this thing? Because 
they know what we are going to find out. They know we are going to find 
out that FEMA became a haven for political hacks, period; end of story, 
dot. Political cronyism at its best. College roommates, the campaign 
manager's college roommate gets the head of FEMA. They get the head of 
FEMA? They have no emergency management experience at all, none. James 
Lee Witt, who was there for President Clinton, was the FEMA emergency 
manager for Arkansas. So if we have a bipartisan commission that maybe 
is not run by this House, that will come out. It will come out that 
eight of the top-level people in FEMA were all political cronies, all 
political hacks given a job. We do not give people jobs in FEMA. We 
give people ambassadorships who make big campaign donations. We know 
that happens. But we do not put them in charge of FEMA.
  What would come out is that we would find out that FEMA's budget was 
slashed.

                              {time}  1830

  All the offense that the Clinton administration was playing with FEMA 
to prevent some of this stuff: budget cuts, tuck FEMA in with Homeland 
Security, make it more bureaucratic, and you put a bunch of political 
hacks in charge of it. That is what is going to come out. That is what 
is going to come out. You cannot run down government at every turn. For 
the last 10 or 15 years down here, everybody has just been running down 
government: Government cannot do anything right, government is the 
problem, government is bad, government is in our way, government this, 
government that. Every problem in the whole world was the government's. 
And then when we need the government there to help, well, no wonder it 
is ineffective. It has been disrespected, the budget has been cut, we 
do not have professionals there. We need the best and brightest in 
government. If you keep running it down, you are not going to get them.
  So that is the meat on that bone, is that they are going to find out 
it was a haven for political hacks, the budget was cut, no 
professionals over there, no certified emergency management 
specialists. And that is what happened, and that is what will come out 
if there is a bipartisan commission.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, let us make the meat on that bone 
turkey, and let us talk turkey now, because beyond the partisan 
commission and beyond what we are saying, which is that there should be 
an independent commission so that we can truly get to the bottom of 
this, let us go a step further, because there are other things going on 
in Congress related to the reaction to Katrina.
  We know that for the next several years we will have what will be a 
massive public works effort to rebuild the Gulf States, which we will 
be behind wholeheartedly, because there but for the grace of God go we, 
and we would want our colleagues to do the same and be supportive if it 
happened in our State. Our colleagues were very supportive of 
Floridians when we faced Andrew down and the follow-up to Andrew. But 
there are going to be some serious needs that will need to be met.
  How is the Republican leadership talking about responding to those 
needs? Well, let us go through it. First, they are talking about 
keeping the tax cuts in place: Let us not touch the tax cuts, because 
wealthy people, they need them. It is really important. So those are 
off the table, those are off limits. On top of that, they are saying, 
you know, we got some concern occasionally about the deficit, so the 
right-wingers on the other side of the aisle are saying that, you know, 
the cost of rebuilding the Gulf States is going to be prohibitive, and 
we want to preserve wealthy people's tax cuts while we are rebuilding 
the Gulf Coast States, so we need to look to some more spending cuts. 
And where are they talking about those spending cuts being from? Well, 
they are starting off with delaying the prescription drug benefit for 
Medicare recipients, for senior citizens who can

[[Page 20867]]

barely make ends meet, for senior citizens who have to choose between 
medicine and meals, for people who literally live, bottom line, day to 
day. Then, they are also talking about cutting transportation projects, 
thousands and thousands of transportation projects, billions of 
dollars.
  Now, who did Katrina hurt the most? The poor people, the people who 
are poverty stricken, 100,000 of them at least, who could not get out 
of New Orleans and who had to go to the Superdome to be able to find 
refuge. So how, when we are trying to find them jobs, are we going to 
get them to those jobs if we cut transportation projects, if we do not 
have mass transit assistance? That is how poor people get to work.
  Where is the heart? Where is the trust? There is no heart in this 
leadership, no caring, no feeling. It is all about them. It is, you 
know, we got ours and the people that support us, we gave them theirs, 
and we are going to make sure they keep it, and everybody else be 
damned. That is what these people are all about.
  When it comes down to it, over the next 14 months, as we go through a 
discussion with the American people about the choices that they will 
have, it is going to be about trust. Who do you trust to take care of 
you? Who do you trust to be there for you in your time of need, to 
protect you when you are in potential danger, and to be there for you 
when it is time to clean up and help you move your life forward?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And let us be honest. This outfit, this gang has 
had their chance for the last 5 or 6 years, in Congress for the last 11 
years, going on 12 years. They have had their chance. Look at FEMA. 
Look at the economy. Look at the tax structure. Look at the Medicare 
program. Look at the health care situation. Look at the poverty that we 
saw, with no real attempt to even try to fix it. I mean, let us be 
honest, there has been no attempt, none. Tax cuts? Wait a minute. How 
are tax cuts helping people that can barely survive?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, in the last few minutes, and if 
the gentleman from Florida wants to go over this, I would be happy to 
yield to him.
  We have on our side of the aisle a series of proposals, an action 
plan that Leader Pelosi has put forward related to housing and economic 
security and health care that we are going to be talking about over the 
next several months, because it is not all about complaining. It is not 
all about we do not like what they are doing. We have a series of 
proposals that we want to see happen to ensure that people can move 
their lives forward. We have to make sure that these people have health 
care. We have to make sure that they have roofs over their heads. We 
have to make sure that they have access to jobs and job training. We 
have to make sure their kids have a place to go to school and that the 
communities where these kids go to school can actually make sure they 
have room for them, like our community. The people coming down to south 
Florida, we are exploding in our public schools. We could barely take 
on another kid who is moving to south Florida voluntarily. So we have 
plans, and we are going to make sure that those plans are outlined and 
that we pursue them and that the American people understand that we are 
going to be there for them when they need us.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, plans would actually be action if we were 
in the majority, or if we had a majority party that were willing to 
move in a bipartisan way in responding to the aftermath of Katrina. And 
also what Hurricane Katrina has exposed in America is the fact that we 
are not prepared to face a natural disaster or a disaster, period. We 
are not coordinated in this country to be able to have a response that 
will be appropriate to the American people in their time of need.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman left off with what is being proposed, 
and what is also being proposed is a $9 billion cut in student aid. I 
know we passed a bill to kind of help with a Pell grant, but this week 
the majority comes back with a $9 billion discussion of helping to pay 
for Katrina. So it is almost like I am going to give you something, but 
I am going to take $9 billion back.
  Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that we have the opportunity to come to the 
floor, and we have had to double up on 30-Something, because it is too 
much, too much going on.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Too much to talk about.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I will tell my colleagues, and I will warn my 
colleagues on the majority side, especially those who are making 
decisions, it is time to start making the right decisions. When you 
have 8 States who say that they want the Federal Government or this 
Congress to investigate oil companies, we are paying $3.50, $3.90 a 
gallon; meanwhile, profits still soaring as it relates to the oil 
companies that are saying, oh, we have to go up on gas prices because 
the oil production is not what it should be. But they are not hurting. 
There are some people who could not make it to work because they could 
not afford to put a quarter of a tank of gas in their car or their 
truck if it was a small business. Sure, prices went up, because they 
could not move product. Diesel fuel went up, let alone jet fuel. 
Flights were canceled. But, meanwhile, the folks that provide the oil, 
they are having record profits. So eight Governors have asked for 
intervention by this Congress.
  And, I have been passed a note here that they are also predicting 
that gas, based on what Rita does, could go to $5 or better. So I hate 
to say to not only my constituents, but also Members of this Congress, 
run out and fill your tank now, because Rita is a reality, and it is 
going to be a category 5. Because we gave money away to billionaires, 
not to the folks that we are talking about, not the folks that are on 
the cover of these magazines. What happened? How did it go wrong? Is 
this America? Question: Is this America?
  Deficits. The deficits were here prior to Katrina, prior to Rita. 
When this administration came into power, that is when we started 
getting into deficits. We had surpluses as far as the eye could see.
  So I am saying that, and I am hopeful that some of our friends, 
especially the ones making decisions on the other side of the aisle, 
will say, well, you know, maybe we need to rethink this.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Maybe we made a bunch of mistakes. Maybe we made a 
couple mistakes.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. They do not make mistakes.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Maybe we need to sit down as adults and look at 
how we can approach this and use not only the contributions, but the 
wisdom of all Members of Congress into, into what? Achieving what the 
American people want. That is not a radical idea. That is very simple. 
We have one side of the aisle that is saying that we want to do that. 
We have one side of the aisle, if given the opportunity to be in the 
majority, will do that. But tomorrow, I say to my colleagues, there 
will be a committee meeting, a partisan committee meeting, to organize 
themselves to get to the bottom of what really happened and did not 
happen, to report to the American people the truth. I will tell my 
colleagues right now that that just will not fly.
  I am asking, as a member of the Democratic Caucus and asking as a 
Member of Congress period, and Leader Pelosi, the Democratic 
leadership, I am on the second floor of a 9-floor building. Hang in 
there, because there are a number of people and Americans, Republicans, 
Democrats, Independents, those that cannot even vote yet and those who 
choose not to vote are counting on our leadership to make sure that 
this never happens again.
  They deserve an independent commission to be able to look at what 
happened, what did not happen. Subpoena those that need to be 
subpoenaed and pulled in, because Michael Brown, as far as I am 
concerned, is just crust on the pie. We are not really getting down to 
what is in the pie when we deal with Michael Brown. Michael Brown is so 
exposed he is just like the Washington Monument that sits in the Mall; 
everyone can see it all over Washington, D.C. If you get lost here in 
Washington, D.C., just look for the monument and you know you are on 
the right track.

[[Page 20868]]

Michael Brown is there. I feel bad for him, because the guy cannot even 
go to the Mall without people looking at him and saying, it was you. 
No, it was not Michael Brown. It was those individuals that allowed 
Michael Brown to be the director of FEMA. It was those individuals that 
made partisan decisions based on political activity in a partisan 
campaign, and said we are going to park our people here, our precinct 
captains in the emergency management agency. In our time of need, we 
want our friends, political friends, to be in those positions.
  Better yet, even if FEMA, let us say if they did not have the ability 
to be able to govern themselves in a time of a natural disaster and 
respond, those individuals that were overseeing FEMA, it goes further. 
Yes, the Department of Homeland Security, you have people in the White 
House that are in charge of certain agencies that bring about 
accountability on those agencies on behalf of the President; you have 
so many people that are from the top, which is the President of the 
United States, Commander in Chief, if you want to speak militarily, all 
the way to the parish commissioner or levee board in New Orleans. In 
that track, need it be elected, appointed, they have to be brought in 
to task to make sure that it does not happen again.
  Were there plans? Of course there were plans to be able to evacuate 
people, to be able to make sure that the Federal response is staged, 
and to go in when the winds die down to 40, the wind count or what have 
you. I am not a meteorologist; I feel like one, because when you watch 
TV, and it is hypnotic watching the reporting of this, 40-mile-per-hour 
winds. But it did not happen. And we can get down to the truth. It very 
well could be; I mean, I heard some folks from Louisiana saying, yes, 
the National Guard was in there trying to do the best they could. They 
did have food in the Superdome. They did have food in the Civic Center 
in New Orleans. No, we were there. We were here in the streets. They 
were not here by themselves. We will never know the truth until we have 
an independent commission.
  I am glad, once again, I am going to say it again just in case. I 
want it to be printed correctly in the Congressional Record that the 
leader, by not appointing to this partisan committee, select committee, 
partisan, I want to say that, partisan committee that will have 
partisan findings, I commend not only her leadership, not on behalf of 
the Democratic Caucus, but on behalf of the American people. The 
question should not be, why are you not appointing Democratic Members 
to this partisan committee? It should be, why do we have a partisan 
committee, select committee in the first place for this bipartisan job?

                              {time}  1845

  Restore this bipartisan job. It is bipartisan because that is what we 
call it. No, that is not bipartisan. You have 11 members on the 
majority side, including the chairman who controls everything, and you 
have nine members on the minority side who cannot even call a committee 
meeting or call a witness up without the permission of the majority.
  So once again, we are in a situation where we are saying, we will 
investigate ourselves and we will get back to you in a number of months 
on our findings of what we did wrong.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, you know, it certainly does not 
have to be that way. It certainly was not that way when the shoe was on 
the other foot, because some people listening might feel, well, you 
know, this is just the way Congress does it. Congress is a partisan 
body, it is a political body; and you know when one side is in charge, 
they run the show. They run these investigations, and that is just the 
way it is.
  Well, in this situation, you have got a Republican Congress 
investigating a Republican administration. And let us go back to the 
Reagan years when you had the Iran-Contra scandal. Then you had a 
committee set up within the Congress, which was a Democratic Congress 
investigating a Republican administration, so obviously there was some 
inherently built-in accountability in that situation.
  And when it came to the way that committee was appointed and 
developed, even internally within the Congress there was mutual 
agreement on both sides of the aisle that it was done in a bipartisan 
fashion. And I will quote then-Representative Dick Cheney from Wyoming 
who is now our Vice President. He said, because he was one of the key 
sponsors of the committee of the legislation that created the Iran-
Contra Committee, he said at that time, ``I must say the majority has 
been exceedingly fair in the proceedings. The leadership of both 
parties has worked in a truly bipartisan fashion to create this 
committee,'' referring to the Iraq-Contra Committee.
  Well, it is really unfortunate that when the shoe is on the other 
foot and they have the opportunity to do the right thing and work in a 
bipartisan fashion, that they are choosing not to. And it is certainly 
within their discretion. It is within their choice, and they are just 
wiping their hands and refusing to do it.
  I know the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is pulling over our 30-
something board, and we want to let people know how they can get in 
touch with us, and we want and we urge their feedback. We want to hear 
from people.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Before I give away the magic address here, I think 
we just need to call this what it is. This is a Republican committee. 
This is a Republican committee that will oversee a Republican mess.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Period. Dot.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Period. End of story. Dot. And you might as well 
put Ken Melman or Ed Gillespie in charge of the committee, because you 
are going to get a political response. You are going to get a political 
whitewash from this whole thing.
  And the American people are going to let this stand. I made the 
prediction last week, and I stand by it today, the American people will 
not let this stand. When there are 11 Republicans there tomorrow 
organizing this committee, you will be able to do it in a phone booth, 
because the Democrats are not going to be around. We are not going to 
lend any credence to this at all.
  And put Ken Melman in charge of this committee because that would 
reflect accurately the end response in what it is going to be. 
30somethingDems, 30 the number, [email protected].
  E-mail us. Let us know what you think. Tell us your thoughts. Share 
with us.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, the way I want to conclude for 
us, or my portion of the conclusion, is to reiterate that at the end of 
the day we have plans.
  If we were in charge, we would be moving to ensure that we got health 
care to the people who are victims of Katrina. We would be making sure 
that we helped get them some economic security. We would make sure that 
there was some accountability in the process of the doling out of 
contracts for the clean-up and the construction.
  We would be making sure that education was of primary and paramount 
concern. We would be initiating an agenda to assist people and restore 
confidence in the emergency preparedness and disaster response 
procedures in America.
  Because Katrina was not the first hurricane that bore down on our 
country; and as we have Rita churning in the gulf as a Category 5, we 
know she is not going to be the last. And, you know, I think we should 
conclude by praying for the people who are going to be experiencing 
Rita in the next few days and sending them our best wishes and urging 
them to heed the warnings that your emergency managers are going to be 
sending out to you.
  So I look forward to joining you again as we do each week, and now, 
you know, in double session, because we have so much to talk about and 
let people know what is going on here in the Congress.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz), you are 110 percent right as it relates to individuals taking 
Rita very seriously. Also I am hoping that

[[Page 20869]]

emergency management, FEMA and other agencies, are doing the 
appropriate things that they need to do to be able to stage themselves 
so that individuals do not wait 3 days, 3 or 4 days.
  We are coming in for a close here, but this is Louisiana, 
Mississippi, or the eastern part of Louisiana, Mississippi, and, also 
Alabama, and we have some of Florida in there, or all of Florida. I 
think it is important for us to understand, in this area right here, 
this is where Katrina struck.
  The individuals that lived here had a slow response, but a response. 
A slow response. We had loss of life here after the storm because 
people could not get what they needed as Americans. Here, this same 
area, President signs a proclamation waiving Davis-Bacon which will 
allow these individuals in these States, and these communities right 
here, real people in these counties and the parishes right up here in 
Louisiana, same place, same President, flying in there, four, five 
visits, what have you, that are without a prevailing wage, which means 
a contractor can go in and say, no minimum wage for this job, even 
though Federal jobs in other parts of the country that are paid for 
with Federal dollars, paid for, they make a prevailing wage.
  It is not a union issue. This is an American issue. We want to make 
sure that these folks rebuild. Better yet, the $62.3 billion-and-change 
that we have appropriated here in this Congress, when it comes down to 
these individuals receiving a paycheck when many of those jobs have 
been shut down and some have decided was the final blow for them to 
move somewhere else will not be able to receive a prevailing wage on 
the tax dollars that they have given in this area.
  That is why we need an independent commission. These individuals, 
these very real people right here in Hancock County in Mississippi, one 
of the hardest hit areas here in a FEMA trailer waiting to speak to an 
operator, I know personally that they were outside for 2 hours waiting 
to get into this trailer of 10 phones. 10 phones.
  They deserve an independent, bipartisan commission to make sure that 
the Federal response is better, quicker. So this goes far beyond 
regular order that we say here in the Congress. This is not a committee 
that has been standing for 50-something years and that is just the way 
we do business. This is a natural disaster and failure of governance.
  And that is where we come in, on the failure of governance side. 
These are real Americans that are suffering. I ask our Republican 
leadership, do not allow this institution to do what it is doing now.
  Do not split us further by having a partisan committee meet tomorrow 
because they can, not because it is the right thing, it is because they 
can. That is wrong.
  If we were supposed to be the shining example of government, elected 
in a democracy, do not allow that to happen. Do not do it because you 
can. Because I can do things as a grown up, I do not do certain things 
in front of my children, because it is a bad example. This is a bad 
example.
  And I will tell you that it is far beyond regular order. I am talking 
to my colleagues in this Congress, and you know exactly what I am 
saying. This is far beyond, because we are in the majority. That is 
right. We are supposed to have more people on the committee. This is a 
natural unprecedented disaster.
  And this was a slow response or no response at all. So I say to 
Members that it is important that we do this. I want to thank, Mr. 
Speaker, our Democratic leader for allowing us to come to the floor 
once again.
  I want to also say that it is an honor to address the House of 
Representatives, but this is a very pressing time, not only for our 
country, but also as it relates to our leadership, and I hope that we 
can come together and make sure that we have a bipartisan independent 
commission that the American people are calling for so badly.

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